Monday, August 18, 2008

Can't sleep, busy dreaming

It's Monday, 3:01 AM and I need to be working in less than seven hours. There are a host of reasons why I can't sleep, most of which boil down to the fact that I can feel an immense change in my life coming.

The title of this blog is das Fettchen, German(ish) for fatty. The actual word is das Dickerchen, meaning literally "little thicky," which, for my audience, made mostly of English speakers, could become tricky (sidenote: one of my favorite phrases when I was first learning German was ich ziehe einen dicken Pulli an, or I put on a thick pullover. Say it out loud if you don't think its funny yet. There you go. Incidentally this is a good way of remembering the masculine of the accusative case).

Where was I: I chose the title das Fettchen for my blog because 1) I like the way it sounds, way better than Dickerchen, 2) I speak German, and 3) frankly, that's what I am—a fatty.

Since I was born, I've been a big kid. My mother, who was 510 at the time I was born (she's since gotten a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery and is a paltry 200) broke her pelvis pushing me out. A Pentecostal Christian at the time, she bore me, all 11 lbs 3.5 oz (she claims the other 0.5 oz for effort) on nothing more than aspirin and prayer. The joke growing up was that I, days old, pushed her out of the hospital.

But this blog isn't about where I came from. It's about who I am.

I have, for the duration of my life, been overweight. Since I was in eighth grade, I've been morbidly obese. Morbid Obesity is defined as having a BMI over 40 or being 100 over one's desired weight. My BMI is 75.

I don't write this to frighten you, or me (although it does), or to elicit your pity—I need to give you some idea of what I'm working with.

The subtitle of this blog is Young, Ambitious, and Morbidly Obese in America. You've been prepped with the nitty-gritty. I, like many of my excessively-overweight peers, don't spend my life committed to losing weight. I spend my life living, inking out an existence same as you, but under the persistent heaviness of health, of society, of normalcy. You will come to learn here about what it's like to be me—I'm 21, a college student at a small liberal arts school, an English/German Major, Chinese Studies Minor, a co-editor of a literary magazine, a design layout editor for a college newspaper, a student leader/liaison for a Diversity Center, and a 3.89 GPA student, who's taking 400 level German after skipping three semesters from 102, a 300-level American Lit class and senior seminar on Shakespeare's Contemporaries in his junior year. Did I mention that I'm also a drag queen?

The point of all of that is to say that in spite of my size, I've lived my life and have excelled in it. I have pushed past the point of what normally-sized individuals would call success and rounded up honors and accolades all to prove a point—this size does not own me.

But the clock is ticking.

In the next year, I plan to do something about it. Follow me in my journey.

Plans for the Week:

Update Layout of Blog

Finish _Black, White, and Jewish_ by Rebecca Walker and Re-read of _Want_ by Rick Barot before Sam gets here

Get flashcards started for German verbs found in _Crazy_ and _Töchter des Himmels_

You are my little baby and I must say that 21 yers later you were worth the effort! You inspire me to be a better "self" than I am. I now know that my destany was to be your mother, my destany from God, given me at the time I was created. Loving you is such a pleasure, my sweet.